Chapter 13
THIRTEEN
Crazy idea…what if we met up sometime?
No pressure or anything. Just…thought it could be cool to actually hang out. In person.
I stared at the screen, my mouth opening and closing as my brain raced with how to respond.
The idea of meeting BigBear in real life was both terrifying and thrilling in equal measure.
What if he didn’t like me when he saw me?
What if I wasn’t who he expected?
What if this ruined everything?
I was still frozen, phone clutched in my hand, when the front door opened and Samantha breezed into our apartment.
“You’re tutoring Foster Kane?” Samantha squealed as she closed the door behind her.
I blinked, completely caught off guard. “How’d you know?”
Samantha dropped her bag on the floor and kicked off her sandals before joining me on the couch.
“Celeste saw you guys walking out of the tutoring center and overheard him say he’d see you next week.
I can’t believe I had to find out through the grapevine that my best friend is tutoring one of the hottest guys on campus.
And of all the hockey hotties, it’s Foster.
Does this mean we can finally go to some of the hockey house parties this fall?
Next to the football house, they’re some of the best, I’ve heard. ”
I felt like I was experiencing déjà vu because going to a party was exactly how the most humiliating night of my life happened.
“Sam, I’m not asking him to invite us to a party.”
“Why not?”
I gave her a look because she of all people should know exactly why not.
Her face fell. “Wait, are you serious, Abby? Are you still upset about what happened freshman year?”
“Are you kidding?” I asked her. “It was humiliating.”
She sighed and looked at me with sympathy. “Abs. You know I love you but what happened that night was—”
I cut her off. “Embarrassing. Humiliating. Mortifying. Pick a synonym.” She gave me a look, so I continued. “Sam, he fell asleep while we were making out. I was in the middle of kissing him and he just conked out. Who even does that?”
She opened up her mouth to speak, but I held my hand up.
“And worse, he doesn’t remember me.” I hated how my voice broke on that sentence. Nearly two years later, that memory still haunted me, but it wasn’t the memory that hurt as much as it was learning I was forgettable.
Her eyes widened as she stared at me, clearly at a loss for what to say.
“He doesn’t remember you from freshman year?”
“Nope.”
“Are you sure?” she asked. “I mean, he seemed totally into you that night. You two couldn’t stop staring and smiling at each other like lovesick fools. Even with all we’d had to drink, I can remember that much.”
“Yeah, and I’m sure he seemed totally into a dozen other girls since then,” I said.
Except the words felt like a lie even as I said them.
I’d never really known Foster to be a womanizer. Not that I knew him much at all, but when I’d seen him on campus, he didn’t seem like a guy who played women, or even dated all that often.
Sam reached for my hand. “Abby, he deserves to know that you guys have a little bit of a history if he doesn’t remember for himself.”
I pulled my hand away and covered my face. “I can’t. It’s just so pathetic, no matter how wasted we were. I can’t tell him about that.”
She brushed a strand of hair from my face, and I reluctantly dropped my hands. “Abby, you are my best friend and you are the most intelligent person I know. But in this, I think you’re letting the events that followed that night make it seem worse than it really was.”
“You weren’t there,” I told her.
“I was there up until you guys left, and he was definitely into you. I don’t care how much we had to drink.”
“Well, he couldn’t have been into me that much because he fell asleep mid-kiss.”
For months after, I questioned if I was that bad of a kisser—that boring—that he could just fall asleep mid-makeout.
Sam gave me her no-nonsense look. “Babes.” Oh no, I knew that tone.
“While I’ve never had a guy fall asleep in the middle of making out, I have had other poor experiences, and guys can’t always perform when they drink too much.
Honestly, there are any number of things that can impact performance, if you know what I’m saying.
But you’ve held on to that night like Rose on the door in Titanic.
And you’ve let it hold you back like there was something wrong with you when there’s not.
Foster got drunk and passed out. It happens to the best and the worst of us.
That’s not a reflection on you or how good a kisser you are. ”
She squeezed my hands. “Don’t hate me, but I think you’ve been holding on to this like a shield.”
“What’s that supposed to mean?”
“You crushed on Foster hard before that night. Then you finally got the chance to hook up with him and it went poorly. I remember how upset you were when you came home and then, before you had a chance to see him again and maybe clear the air, your mom died.”
The familiar burn of tears stung behind my eyes, but I gritted my teeth and swallowed down the emotion bubbling up.
She continued. “I think the grief of losing her combined with…I don’t know, feelings of failure or embarrassment, just turned that night into this giant thing for you.
When to anyone else it would have been something that a few weeks later you could laugh at.
I’ve watched you practically bury yourself under work, classes, and your internship—all of it to avoid feeling.
And Abby, that’s no way to live. Your mom wouldn’t want that for you.
She would want you to feel. She would want you to embrace life and dating, to have a crush, to maybe fall in love. ”
I swallowed thickly because she would want that. I knew it was true, but that didn’t make it any easier to acknowledge out loud.
And if she was right about my mom, was Sam also right about that night? Had I let my mind twist that night with Foster into something worse than it actually was? Had I gotten in my own way because of everything that happened after?
What would have happened if I had seen Foster again before my mom’s accident? Would he have remembered me? Would we have cleared the air?
Sam squeezed my hand. “Please don’t let that night hold you back, and don’t hold it over Foster.”
“It doesn’t matter,” I said. “He doesn’t remember me, and I doubt he would be interested in me in that way. I’m just his tutor.”
“He liked you once,” she said with a beguiling smile. “I’m pretty sure he could fall for you again.”
Maybe the more important question was, did I want him to?
Or was there someone else I’d also avoided taking a chance with because of fear?
With a pat on my knee, she headed down the hall to her room. I picked up my phone again and saw that Bear had left another message.
BigBear88:
If you don’t want to, it’s totally cool. No pressure at all.
A smile tugged at the corner of my mouth.
Maybe it was time to take a risk.
My fingers hovered over the keyboard for a second longer. Then, heart pounding, I typed back:
PeachyKeen:
I’d love to meet.
Sam was right about one thing. It was time I put myself out there again, and hopefully this time things would turn out better than before.